project, or propell, the le-thall weapon
through the belly-band of his regimental breeches, which were his
Majesty's."

One of the most biting of caustic jests made by a judge of the old Court
of Session of Scotland, before its reconstruction at the beginning of
the nineteenth century, was uttered during the hearing of a claim to a
peerage. The claimant was obviously resting his case upon forged
documents, and the judge suddenly remarked in the broad dialect of the
time, "If ye persevere ye'll nae doot be a peer, but it will be a peer
o' anither tree!" The claimant did not appreciate this idea of being
grafted, and abandoned the case.

* * * * *

To return to the stories of the earlier period of the eighteenth
century, there is one told of Lord Halkerston. He was waited on by a
tenant, who with a woeful countenance informed his lordship that one of
his cows had gored a cow belonging to the judge, and he feared the
injured animal could not live. "Well, then, of course you must pay for
it," said his lordship. "Indeed, my lord, it was not my fault, and you
know I am but a very poor man."--"I can't help that. The law says you
must pay for it. I am not to lose my cow, am I?"--"Well, my lord, if it
must be so, I cannot say more. But I forgot what I was saying. It was my
mistake entirely. I should have said that it was your lordship's cow
that gored mine."--"Oh, is that it? That's quite a different affair. Go
along, and don't trouble me just now. I am very busy. Be off, I say!"

And there is one of the testy old Lord Polkemmet when he interrupted Mr.
James Ferguson, afterwards Lord Kilkerran, whose energy in enforcing a
point in his address to the Bench took the form of beating violently on
the table: "Maister Jemmy, dinna dunt; ye may think ye're dunting it
_intill me_, but ye're juist _dunting it oot o' me_, man."

He was reputed to be dull, and rarely decided a case upon the first
hearing. On one occasion, after having heard counsel, among whom was the
Hon. Henry Erskine, John Clerk, and others, in a cause of no great
difficulty, he addressed the Bar: "Well, Maister Erskine, I heard you,
and I thocht ye were richt; syne I heard you, Dauvid, and I thocht ye
were richt; and noo I hae heard Maister Clerk, and I think he's richtest
amang ye a'. That bauthers me, ye see! Sae I man een tak' hame the
process an' wimble-wamble it i' ma wame a wee ower ma toddy, and syne
ye'se hae ma interlocutor.